


forgetting the words to your favorite song

by metonymy



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Five Plus One, Fluff, multiple AUs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 02:10:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonymy/pseuds/metonymy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't think he remembers her. But she certainly remembers him. Or: five times they could have met other than the Fischer job but didn't, and the one time they did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	forgetting the words to your favorite song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nessismore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nessismore/gifts).



**5 | 11**

They are vacationing in Maine. Arthur thinks the beach is too rocky and the water too cold, even if his father claims it will put hair on his chest, and he prefers to stay on the blanket wrapped in a towel with his book. He's halfway through the summer reading list and it's only the first week of July; at this rate he'll have plenty of time to get to the books he really wants to read, by August maybe. When he closes _The Westing Game,_ he can see Rachel playing with another little girl closer to the beach.

He walks over and the girls look up as his shadow crosses their sand castle.

"Hi, Arthur," Rachel says.

"Who's your friend?" he asks. Because a little girl in a red swimsuit is probably not any danger to his sister, who's older and bigger than her, but he still wants to know.

"Radnee," Rachel says. The girl frowns.

"Ariadne."

"Are you on vacation too?" he asks, because it's polite. She shakes her head, sending her ponytail flying.

"I live up there," she says, waving her hand at the fringe of dark woods up the slope, and Arthur imagines naiads and dryads and wood spirits coming down to tempt human children away, in spite of his father's voice in the back of his head that tells him to stop being silly. But he can see a woman sitting there in a long skirt with a book and notepad and figures that must be Ariadne's mother, so it's probably fine.

"Must be nice living by the beach," he offers.

"I hate it. All the summer people go away. It's quiet. And _boring,_ " she insists. "'Cept I get to build the biggest sandcastles with no bigger kids knocking them down."

"And we're gonna build the biggest sandcastle on the beach!" Rachel says, giving Arthur her most winning smile. He accepts his fate and sits down on the sand, reaching for a shovel.

"How can I help?"

 

**12 | 18**

Ariadne can't reach the book she needs.

It just figures. Dragged to Chicago by her parents for a conference, promised sightseeing and adventures, and then being dropped in the library because she's not old or responsible enough to go on her own. They'll go sightseeing later, they promise, but for now she's stuck here by herself. But at least it's a library, and there's plenty of things she's interested in and can read about.

Of course, the book she wants is up at the top of a very tall bookshelf, and puberty is still a distant dream, and there are no step-stools anywhere in the aisle, and Ariadne is strongly considering trying to scale the bookshelf when she hears the creak of a rolling cart with a squeaky wheel and jumps back.

The guy pushing the cart just looks at her as if she weren't blushing bright red and sweating a little from jumping up and down. "Can I help you?" he asks, and it sounds more like he's actually offering than just reciting a stock phrase because it's his job.

"Um, yeah," she says, ducking her head and letting her hair fall to cover her face. It's a terrible habit, her father says, she should look at people when she speaks, but she can't bring herself to look directly at this guy. As he wheels the cart closer and slips around the front of it to stand next to her, she peeks through her hair. He's younger than his button-down and sweater vest would imply. Probably a student worker, and less likely to ask _little girl, where are your parents?_ She's not a little girl, anyway.

"What did you need?" he asks, surveying the shelves in front of them.

"Philip Larkin. _High Windows,_ " Ariadne answers, gesturing at the left side of the top shelf. The guy reaches it easily and offers it to her, and when their fingers brush she gets tingles all up and down her arms.

"Really? Larkin?" he asks, glancing from her back up to the gap in the neat row of books, then sliding them all over so there's no space left.

"Why not?" And she's all ready to challenge him and tell him she's perfectly capable of understanding grown-up poetry when he tilts his head to look at her again in that sidelong, considering way.

"I prefer older stuff. Like Christina Rosetti," he says, turning to the shelves behind them and scanning them, then picking out a slim volume and handing it to her. "Give it a try." And then the guy goes back to his cart and Ariadne finds a desk and chair tucked under a window and opens the book titled _Goblin Market and other poems_ and loses herself in a world of verse and temptation and beauty.

 

**18 | 24**

Arthur didn't miss this. Oh, there were a lot of things about civilian life he missed, but noisy clubs like this were not high on the list. But Dom and Mal were meeting a contact in the back room, they said, and he could wait at the bar in the meantime. It would be good for him, Mal had said with laughter dancing in her eyes. He hadn't been entirely sure whether she was laughing at him. But Arthur is used to following orders, and he sits on his bar stool with a sweating bottle of beer and lets the waves of music wash over him.

He's not used to almost getting knocked off his barstool by someone careening into him, though, and it's only thanks to quick reflexes that he doesn't fall over or break a tooth on his bottle. When he turns there's a tiny girl glaring over her shoulder at a gaggle of other young ladies who are pushing their way back onto the dance floor.

"Sorry," she says loudly over the music. She looks about fourteen, in spite of her heavy eyeliner and miniskirt. Or maybe because of them.

"No harm done," he says, and turns back to his bottle. But then she's clambering onto the stool next to him and ordering - a soda. Arthur's good at drawing conclusions and is starting to put a few together about this girl: the responsible one, dragged out with friends or roommates to a bar that wouldn't look too closely at their fake IDs, possibly the designated driver though that's less likely here on the fringes of Chinatown.

"What? I said I was sorry," she says. Arthur realizes he looks like - okay, he is staring at her, but he's definitely not some lecherous old man hitting on teenagers. Not that he's old. Just definitely older than her.

"You're not supposed to be here, are you?" he asks, leaning in so he doesn't have to yell quite as loudly. She frowns at him, leaning closer as well.

"Are you a cop?" she asks in return instead of answering his question. He laughs, he can't help it, and she stares at him like he's grown an extra head. Usually people only do that if they know him already and he starts laughing. Not his fault he was born serious.

"Why would you say that? Do I look like a cop?"

"You could be undercover," she says, still looking dubious. Arthur grins at her, then takes a swallow of his beer.

"Nope. Don't worry, I won't rat you out. I'm just waiting for my friends."

"Your friends brought you here?" Her soda has arrived and she gestures with it expansively, managing not to spill a drop in defiance of the laws of physics.

"It's a long story."

She leans in again, eyes sparkling. "I've got time."

 

**23 | 29**

Delays suck. It's a fact of life and of modern travel. And Ariadne has moved past the stages of denial and anger and bargaining and into acceptance: she is going to be sitting in this airport for a while, and haranguing the gate agent isn't going to do any good. So she pulls out her sketchbook and props it against her knees and starts sketching.

"Is that the Grand Palais?" someone says.

Ariadne resists the urge to sigh or roll her eyes or both at once. She's used to having people look at what she's sketching but she's never going to like it. But being rude to this guy would probably mean he'd end up as her seatmate and that would make for a very uncomfortable flight. So instead she nods, then looks up.

Okay, maybe the people creeping on her sketchbook aren't usually cute guys who are impeccably dressed. Now he's giving her a slightly sheepish smile.

"I apologize. That was rude of me."

And Ariadne doesn't give passes to guys for being cute, but he's also apologizing. So it evens out.

"Kind of, yeah," she says, and now his smile is broadening and he has _dimples_ and maybe this delay isn't going to be so terrible after all. "You've been to Paris before?"

He has. He sits down near her and introduces himself as Arthur. He tells her about the Moroccan restaurant he went to in the 3ème where he had a chickpea stew with preserved lemons, and that reminds her of the time her friend Jerome managed to upset a cart full of fruit all over their local market, and when Arthur laughs the dimples are accompanied by crinkles around his eyes. He doesn't bat an eye when she tells him her name or make any stupid jokes. She's started to wonder whether she's fallen into a romantic comedy by the time the plane is finally boarding. Of course, then they're not seated together, and he nods a courteous goodbye as she heads past him into the bowels of coach.

But when she reaches into the front of her backpack for her headphones, her fingers encounter a slim piece of stiff paper. The business card reads _Arthur Weismann: international consulting_ with an email address printed neatly underneath. On the back of the card is a phone number written in ballpoint pen. Ariadne turns the card over and over in her fingers and smiles.

 

**28 | 34**

The restaurant isn't as intimate as some, but the extra space is filled with so many people that it hardly matters. There are undergraduates mingling with professors emerita, and children running around the tables with voices hitting high notes of laughter and joy. Arthur misses Cobb. He rarely does, but his friend should be here, not in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

"Someone let them at the cake early," someone remarks, and Arthur glances over and sees a young woman who's found a place beside him without him noticing.

"Or just gave them soda when they weren't supposed to have it," he answers, smiling slightly. The diversion is nice; there are plenty of people here to keep an eye on Phillipa and James besides him, and the godfather isn't really necessary when the guardians are here anyway. Besides, he'd been dangerously close to slipping into maudlin self-pity, and that's just stupid at a party that has nothing to do with him.

"I suppose it isn't really a party till someone collapses in a corner. A sugar coma counts, right?" The woman beams back at him and offers her hand. Her English is flawless, and clearly American. "Ariadne."

"Arthur," he replies, surprised by her firm and decisive handshake. He takes a careful survey of her as she speaks; she isn't overcompensating for her short stature with spike heels, she wears no makeup, and she's wearing an interesting blouse and silk scarf instead of the ubiquitous sheath dress and statement necklace. Arthur can't stop staring at her wrists and the delicate movements of her hands and the luminous quality of her skin as she speaks, telling him how Miles was her mentor and made her feel at home in Paris and helped her find her first job, and her enthusiasm and love is contagious. He finds himself smiling.

"And how do you know him?" she asks finally, and he shrugs. How can he explain his tangled relationship with the Cobbs?

"Friend of the family. And I did some training with Miles as well."

"Oh, wonderful. He's such a great teacher, isn't he? Did you study architecture, or were you one of his experimental students?" She's looking at him over her glass as if they're sharing a secret. And perhaps they are.

Arthur isn't a man who does things impulsively, or a man who believes in cliches about arrow-firing cherubs and thunderbolts to the heart, but he's feeling reckless for once in his life. He finishes his drink and sets down the empty glass and looks directly at Ariadne. "The latter," he says quietly when their eyes meet, seeing how hers widen just a fraction. "Would you like to see how it works?"

She would. And when she takes his arm as they tender their regrets to Miles and leave the party early, well, Arthur's ready for anything. Maybe she is too.

 

_**23 | 29** _

She's riding on the Metro, on her way to a gallery opening. Ariadne normally doesn't dress like this but at a friend's insistence she's wearing a dress and heels and has her hair up, a few pieces falling out less by design and more due to her lack of practice with the bobby pins.

As the train slows and jerks to a stop, she stumbles against a skinny guy in a light-colored suit. His long fingers catch at her arms to keep her upright. Ariadne can feel a shiver go all the way down her spine at the contact, even through her leather jacket.

"Sorry," she mumbles, and he sets her back on her feet. Stupid precarious shoes, she thinks.

"No harm done," he says, looking away as the train starts moving again. This affords her a nice look at his profile as they pull into the station. And then he's gone through the opening doors, not giving her another glance. Ariadne doesn't think about it again until the next week, when she's following Professor Miles's son-in-law into a warehouse and sees an impeccably dressed man amid the junk who turns to look at them and that same sharp jawline springs into relief. She doesn't think he remembers her. But she certainly remembers him. And as he rushes to her side when she wakes from the dream gone wrong, those long fingers catch at her wrist. He steadies her again. She shivers all over this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Written as reward fic for V; I've tweaked your prompt slightly so I could write section 5. NO REGRETS. Thanks to @prodigy for the suggestion of Ariadne's favorite poet and to @alierakieron for general cheerleading.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [it was so easy and the words so sweet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/703681) by [metonymy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonymy/pseuds/metonymy)




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